1. The Field of the Present Invention
The present invention relates generally to optical connectors for colinear alignment of the axis of a pair of optical waveguides. More specifically, the invention resides in the general field of optical connectors which utilize a three rod alignment technique in achieving said colinear alignment of waveguides.
2. The Prior Art
The communications industry has long been in need of a field appliable optical waveguide splice which meets stringent optical and mechanical performance criteria, which is inexpensive to manufacture, physically compact, and readily applied requiring little or no specialized tooling. Attempts to achieve such a device has spawned numerous interconnection technologies, no one of which, however, being totally successful to date in satisfying all of the industry's requirements.
One approach examined has been the heat fusion of optical fibers in effectuating a low loss splice. This tecnhique, however, is less than ideal since it is difficult to adapt to field applications. Other, purely mechanical, alignment technologies circumvent the disadvantages of heat fusion, but fail to meet either the performance, cost, or size objectives outlined above.
One promising alignment technique which has been incorporated into mateable connectors known in the art, embodies a pair of mating connector halves, each comprising three or more elongate cylindrical rods which are mutually positioned to define an interstitial passageway therebetween for receiving a respective waveguide therein. The rods are radially clamped together and against the waveguides by any one of a number of methods, and subsequently, the ends of the three rods of one connector half are aligned with corresponding ends of the rods of the opposite half, to colinearly align the axis of the waveguides and accomplish their colinear presentation. Heretofore, however, no satisfactory field applicable splice has been achieved which utilizes this alignment technique.